In Warren Buffett on Business: Principles From the Sage of Omaha, Buffet is quoted as saying that one of the most important things you can be as a leader is generous. He says that generosity is not just sharing resources (though it is that), but sharing credit, sharing time, sharing connections, and sharing opportunities to help create an environment where success happens more naturally, and where you can build a legacy as a leader of healthy growth.1
So what does it look like to be a truly generous leader? When I was 23 years old and first experienced a call to ministry, I reached out to my old youth pastor for advice on how to heed the call. He made time to talk to me, and after a 30 minute phone conversation, he sent a few emails and helped point me towards the opportunity that would launch my ministry career. When, at 25, an opportunity for a big promotion presented itself (one that I wasn’t sure I was ready for), I called him again, and he gave me advice that has shaped how I have made a lot of career decisions since. He was so generous with his time for my anxious questions, and it’s not like I was the only one reaching out to him, there were easily 350 kids in the youth ministry when I was there, and he had been at that job for more than a decade when I met him.
But he still made time for me, heard me out, listened to me, and gave me real insight that was deeply informed not only by his decades of experience, but also what he knew of me, and the thoughtful questions he asked. He was the kind of leader that made it seem obvious that I was welcome to ask for advice years and years after I graduated from the group he led.
So when I called him for a third time, at 29, asking for career advice, and he offered me a job, I took it.
You see, my youth pastor growing up was Mark DeVries. When I started working for Mark, I realized that not only was he my former youth pastor, he was the co-founder of Ministry Incubators, the president of Ministry Architects, the founder of CYMT and Just.Industries, and an author a dozen times over. His schedule was ridiculous, traveling all over the country to speak and consult, using plane rides as his writing hours, and long drives as his time to return dozens of phone calls (including the ones like mine in my 20s).
It would have been very fair for Mark to say that he didn’t have time to walk me through not one, but three major career decisions. It would have been very understandable for, if he did make the time, for him to not be particularly present in the calls. But he did make the time, and he was present, and it has shaped the course of my career. It has also shaped what I think a good leader looks like.
Mark is generous with his time, his opportunities, and his attention, and in particular, he is generous towards the next generation. Mark (and Trey) have publicly spoken about the importance of “keychain leadership,” a particular kind of generous leadership that intentionally steps back to allow younger people to step up to the plate. Now that I am approaching an age that isn’t really considered “young,” the beautiful gift that is, and the importance of it, is so much more obvious to me.
All generosity matters, but generosity, particularly of time and opportunities, to young people has a sort of compounded interest. We have a responsibility towards the future of the institutions we love – be it our churches, our traditions, our organizations, or even our families. By being generous with the networks we’ve built, the opportunities that come our way, and grace we offer, we can lead in a way that truly shapes the lives of the people around us with potential generational knock-on effects.
I take the calls of my former youth group kids and interns, because Mark took mine. And when I look around the staff meetings at Ministry Incubators, a group of the smartest, nicest, people I’ve ever met, bending over backwards to try to make a smoother path for leaders like you who are called to such incredible work in the world, I can’t help but wonder if that generosity caught on to them too.
We hope you get to experience that kind of generosity, and we hope it’s transformative enough that you can offer it. In the mystery of God, the more we offer, we often find the more there is to go around, maybe not for us, but for those who come after. And that is an investment worth making.
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